Press release from Greek Helsinki Monitor, 19 June 1997

IHF Focus: Human rights legislation; presidential elections; freedom of
the media; the rule of law (surveillance of political opponents);
independence of the judiciary; fair trial and detainees rights
(including Labor Education Schools for children); torture and
ill-treatment; freedom of religion; conscientious objection; protection
of minorities; the rights of the child; protection of refugees; the
death penalty

Throughout 1996, Bulgaria was governed by the Bulgarian Socialist
Party, the victor of the December 1994 parliamentary elections. The
government led by Prime Minister Zhan Videnov remained indifferent to
human rights concerns. An illustrative example of this attitude was
the appointment of Boncho Assenov as head of the Directorate of
Religious Affairs at the Council of Ministers. He had on several
occasions openly expressed his support for the abusive minority policy
of the communist government in the 1980s, when a campaign was carried
out to forcefully change the names of ethnic Turks.

In comparison to 1995, systematic violations of human rights increased
in 1996. They resulted from the neglect of lawful practices,
inefficiency of law enforcement agencies, and widespread corruption.

Legislation

The general disregard for human rights issues was illustrated by the
fact that virtually no measures were taken to create human rights
legislation during 1996. No human rights instruments were signed or
ratified by the government. The only attempt to improve domestic
legislation was the regulation passed by the Council of Ministers which
provided that refusals by the Social Assistance Administration to pay
welfare assistance would be subject to judicial review. Two crucial
acts which would be essential for the improvement of human rights
legislation were postponed, although they were on the Parliament s
agenda. These were the act providing for an alternative civilian
service to military service, and amendments to the Juvenile Delinquency
Act to abolish the system of Labor Education Schools.

Presidential Elections

The first round of presidential elections were held in Bulgaria on 27
October 1996 and the second run on 3 November. Both local and foreign
observers, including some from the OSCE, monitored the elections. These
elections confirmed one of the positive achievements in the development
of democracy in Bulgaria: they were free and fair. No abuses were
reported on the election days. The only concern raised by some local
and international observers was the unequal access to national
television, to the disadvantage of opposition candidates.

Freedom of Expression and the Media:

Harassment of Journalists

Criminal proceedings were initiated against journalists for what they
had written or broadcast in respect of public officials. The
prosecutors initiated charges on the basis of Article 148, paragraph 1
of the Penal Code relating to "defamation of public officials." In most
cases, courts imposed heavy fines.

On 20 February 1996, Valentin Hadzhiev, a correspondent of 24 chasa,
and Mitko Shtirkov, correspondent of Trud, were arrested and charged
with defamation (Article 148.1 of the Penal Code). The journalists had
described a prosecutor in the Smolyan County as a former police officer
who had been dismissed from the force for bribe-taking. The journalists
were detained for one day and then released by the Smolyan Regional
Court.

In June, journalist Krassimir Iliev was sentenced by the District Court
in Blagoevgrad to serve six months in prison after being found guilty
of defaming the chief prosecutor.

The attack on freedom of reporting on the national radio and television
started in the last days of 1995. In late November 1995, 34 journalists
and reporters from the most popular radio station Radio Sofia -
followed soon by dozens of colleagues - signed a protest declaration
against "permanent direct administrative interference in the
preparation and broadcasting of programs." Their declaration protested
the censorship imposed through financial sanctions against journalists.
It also stated that the consequences of such control included
unbalanced presentation of political parties; information blackouts on
some events; and highlighting events of minor importance at the expense
of major events. Dozens of journalists quickly signed the declaration.
The director of the national radio network rejected the accusations as
unfounded, and immediately fired his deputy for having organized the
protests. On 18 December 1995, seven of those who had signed the
declaration were dismissed.

The attempts to "cleanse" the national electronic media continued in
1996.

The Parliament on 7 June 1996 dismissed Bulgarian National TV General
Director Ivan Granitski, officially for financial irregularities and
for poor management. The real reason appeared to be the fact that Zhan
Videnov, both Prime Minister and Bulgarian Socialist Party Chairman,
had disapproved of the television s newscasts, co-productions, and
sociological analyses.

The Law on National Radio and Television

Another cause for concern related to freedom of expression in 1996 was
the new Law on National Radio and Television. The Bulgarian Parliament
adopted the bill on 18 July, but President Zhelyu Zhelev vetoed it.
Parliament overrode the President s veto and adopted it again on 5
September without changes. Although the Constitutional Court in
November declared the law unconstitutional on several counts, its
provisions reflected the increasing determination by the political
leadership to gain control over the most important media, national
radio and television.

Although the law explicitly stated that "Bulgarian National Radio and
National Television are independent organizations" (Article 48), the
law also provided for Parliament to impose considerable control over
the operation of both public and private electronic media.

The law provided for a National Board for Radio and Television (NCRT),
the composition of which had to reflect the strengths of the various
parliamentary factions. This, in practice, gave the majority party the
right to control the electronic media.

The law vested the NCRT with a broad mandate to control all electronic
media, to oversee media operations and to elect the heads of state
radio and television. The NCRT was also to issue licenses to private
broadcasters after reviewing detailed programming schemes; to appoint
the executive directors and the managing bodies of public radio and
television, and to exercise control over programming. In addition, the
budgets both of the NCRT and of state radio and television were,
according to the law, to be voted upon as part of the state budget,
which placed them under the direct control of the government and the
majority in Parliament.

Article 4 of the new law stated that the NCRT would have the authority
to cancel programs and suspend broadcast licenses based on
vaguely-worded "principles." For example, the programs had to be "in
conformity with the constitutional order" and could not violate
"national security considerations, defense interests, and universally
accepted moral values." They had to "protect the national and spiritual
values of the Bulgarian people" and could not amount to "psychological
assault." The law also prohibited the dissemination of information that
would damage the individual s "honor ... regardless of the veracity [of
the information]" (Article 32).

The law s provisions violated the Bulgarian Constitution which
stipulates that the only form of speech that can be prohibited is
incitement to overthrow the constitutional order.

A further cause of concern was that the NCRT was entitled to close a
private broadcaster s station for up to six months, if the broadcaster
violated the Law on National Radio and Television and refused to follow
the Board s instructions. Yet, according to the Constitution, prior
restraint can be imposed only by the courts and then only for the
prevention of incitement to violence, criminal offenses and the
overthrow of the constitutional order.

A particularly controversial aspect of the law was that it prohibited
independent broadcasting by political parties, trade unions, religious
groups and non-profit organizations. Furthermore, the language of all
broadcasting was to be Bulgarian. Only foreign music, educational
programs and foreign cable networks were excepted from this provision.
The mainly ethnic-Turkish Movement for Rights and Freedoms (MRF) have
charged that this provision runs counter to the Framework Convention
for the Protection of National Minorities of the Council of Europe in
that it does not allow minorities to have programs in their own
languages. The law also prohibited broadcasting by political parties,
trade unions, and religious and non-governmental organizations. Such
organizations were also forbidden to own more than a ten percent stake
in any broadcasting company.

The Constitutional Court declared 15 of the law s provisions to be in
violation of the Constitution. Among these were provisions providing
for prior control over broadcast programs. Most importantly, the Court
declared the rules on the selection of the members of the NCRT to be
invalid.

A new law was expected to come before Parliament in 1997 because the
Constitutional Court s ruling left nobody with the powers to elect or
to dismiss the general managers of public radio and television.

The Rule of Law

The Bulgarian Helsinki Committee reported that the security police
carried out surveillance of political activists in 1996. Former Prime
Minister Andrei Lukanov of the Socialist Party provoked a heated
discussion in March by stating that the police had resumed old,
communist, state-security methods of monitoring the activities of
politicians and other citizens. Many people shared this fear after
appointments of former state-security officials to the police forces.
It was extremely difficult, however, to provide tangible evidence of
such practices, because the new law regulating the use of special
surveillance techniques allowed for very limited control over the use
of such methods.

Independence of the Judiciary, Fair Trial and Detainees Rights:

Independence of the Judiciary

In 1996, no reports were received about the judiciary acting improperly
in response to political pressure. Despite severe pressure by the
governing Socialist Party against both the Constitutional and the
Supreme Courts, through the media under its control, the courts
retained independence in their rulings on several politically sensitive
issues. In one of them, the Supreme Court upheld the results of the
1995 municipal elections in the district of Kurdzhali, where the
Socialist Party had lost the elections. The government had declared the
results void. Also in 1996, the Constitutional Court declared a number
of adopted laws unconstitutional.

Labor Education Schools See the Rights of the Child, below.

Pre-Trial Detention and Fair Trial

Concerns about the excessive length of both criminal and civil
proceedings increased significantly in 1996. Structural problems with
the judiciary and lack of qualified professionals resulted in packed
court dockets and procedures taking years. In addition, poor
coordination between police, and investigating and prosecuting
authorities made criminal cases particularly slow. In July, about
80,000 criminal proceedings were at the stage of investigation, trial
or appeal, and a total of 3,960 persons were detained on remand, most
of them for more than the statutory limit of nine months.

The number of long pre-trial detentions continued to mount in 1996, as
delays in structural reform of the judiciary and pervasive
understaffing problems helped prolong judicial proceedings. Over 35
percent of all prisoners in Bulgaria were in pre-trial detention
awaiting trial, some ten percent of them having been thus detained for
more than three years.

There was also an evident need to educate judges and other legal
professionals on how to ensure fair trial standards, particularly for
members of some ethnic minorities.

In March 1996, Georgi Solunski, leader of a Macedonian group, was
imprisoned for two years and eight months at a closed trial on charges
of hooliganism and illegal possession of ammunition. Both the length of
the sentence and the evidence brought against him during the trial
suggest that his ethnicity played a significant role in his
conviction.

Torture and Ill-treatment

In 1996, two trials of police officers charged with excessive use of
force or torture shed light on the continuing inappropriate conduct of
the police. Police have continued to beat, shoot at, torture, and
otherwise ill-treat detainees. Some of the incidents - reported
virtually on a daily basis - have resulted in death. A disproportionate
number of the victims were Roma.

In May 1995, the Interior Minister, Lyubomir Nachev, reportedly stated
that 17 people had died in suspicious circumstances in police custody
in the previous 14 months. However, he gave no information on how many
cases had been investigated, and nor the results of such
investigations.

In 1996, ill-treatment by police continued unabated.

On 1 February 1996, two police officers stopped the car of Georgi
Georgiev for a routine check. Velislav Dobrev and another passenger
were also in the car. One of the police officers said to Georgiev that
his name was on a wanted list and asked for 4000 leva to "arrange the
matter." Georgiev refused and when Dobrev intervened in his support, he
was allegedly beaten by the police officer. At the same time, the
police officer asked his colleague to give him a cartridge for his gun.
After suffering further beating, the three men were taken to a police
station. They were reportedly refused medical care and were not allowed
to contact their families. A medical doctor later stated that the blows
to Dobrev s head could have been fatal.

On 8 April, at least 15 people were reportedly severely beaten when
around 40 masked officers of the special anti-terrorist unit , the Red
Berets (Tsrveni Bareti), and special officers of the Sofia Directorate
of Internal Affairs carried out a raid on the offices of the VAI Invest
Holding company and a neighboring apartment. Fifteen employees were
arrested, some seriously injured. During the raid, the officers
destroyed much of the office s equipment and allegedly took money and
other valuables with them.

In March 1996, two police officers each received eight-month suspended
sentences for severely beating and causing bodily injury to two Roma
teenagers in Vidin.

In June, five police officers were sentenced to prison terms ranging
from one to 20 years for ill-treatment leading to the death of a
detainee, Hristo Hristov, in April 1995, .

On 20 September, two police officers were each sentenced to 15 years
imprisonment in the city of Varna. They were found guilty of beating to
death detainee Georgi Todorov while in custody, in order to obtain
testimony.

The lack of such rights as legally guaranteed access to legal counsel,
the right to an independent medical doctor and to be in contact with
relatives, made ill-treatment in custody all too easy. Furthermore,
abuses were difficult to prove as in most cases all "witnesses" were
fellow police officials. Members of ethnic minorities with low income,
in particular, often ended up having no legal counsel. A further
obstacle to protecting detainees against torture remained the fact that
only the public prosecutor could initiate the prosecution of police
officers accused of ill-treatment. His or her refusal to prosecute was
not subject to judicial review.

Members of ethnic minority groups continued during 1996 to account for
a disproportionate number of those ill-treated by police.

In January 1996, a Roma man died under suspicious circumstances while
in detention in Razgrad.

In April, May and June, ethnic Macedonians were mistreated by police
while trying to exercise their legal right to free peaceful assembly
and association.

Gay people were also reported to have been ill-treated by law
enforcement officials.

Freedom of Religion

Freedom of thought, conscience, religion and belief continued to be a
focus of serious concern in Bulgaria in 1996. The government, using the
1949 Denomination Act and its power to exercise discretion in matters
of recognition (based on the 1994 amendments to the Persons and Family
Act), continued attempts to interfere in religious life and place all
religious communities under its control. Government interference was
particularly flagrant in the case of the two biggest communities, the
Eastern Orthodox Church and the Muslims. In each of these cases, rather
than remaining neutral, top government officials both acted and spoke
publicly in favor of one of the splinter groups organized around
government-appointed religious bodies. The interventions deepened
splits, and politicized debates on religious issues.

The split within the Bulgarian Orthodox Church became official in 1996
after a meeting of the anti-governmental synod in June which elected an
alternative patriarch and church officials. The government vowed even
before the meeting not to recognize this group and its elected
officials.

However, the most serious cause for concern was the open targeting and
harassment of small non-Orthodox religious groups labeled as "sects" -
a total of 45 religious groups. After they were refused juridic person
status or their status was revoked in the amendments to the Persons and
Family Act of 1994, officials directed a substantial amount of effort
towards "uncovering" their "unlawful" activities. The Bulgarian media
contributed to the negative stereotyping of those groups.

Without official recognition, some denominations were virtually forced
to go "underground." "Illegal" meetings of, for example, the Word of
Life were periodically "discovered" by the police, followed by much
propaganda against the community in the media. Several incidents of
police interference in meetings of Jehovah s Witnesses were also
reported in 1996.

In February 1996, Jehovah's Witnesses who were handing out leaflets and
preaching in Smolian were expelled from the region.

In April, the Director of the Religious Affairs Committee, Mr.
Matanov, personally forbade Jehovah s Witnesses to hold their congress
in one of the city halls in Sofia.

In June, police in the town of Asenovgrad searched the regular meeting
place of local Jehovah s Witnesses and effectively prevented them from
holding meetings there.

Other violations of the rights of religious minority groups have
involved discrimination in employment, withdrawal of parental rights on
religious grounds and the refusal by local authorities to allow
religious communities to build places of worship.

In January 1996, the district governor of Haskovo banned the building
of a mosque in a village near Stambolovo.

In June, a Muslim school near Russe was closed by authorities.

In October, the Bulgarian government refused to abide by the Supreme
Court s ruling which demanded that the government register the faction
of the Muslim community which is not loyal to the government.

Conscientious Objection

Criminal prosecution of conscientious objectors intensified in 1996.
Article 59(2) of the Bulgarian Constitution stipulates that a law on
alternative service to military service be passed by the Parliament
within three years of the Constitution becoming effective (in 1991). No
such law was passed as of the end of 1996. Instead, several young men
were sentenced to pay fines or received suspended prison sentences in
1996. The main targets, again, were Jehovah's Witnesses whose religious
conviction does not allow them to perform military service. But members
of other religious groups, such as Seventh Day Adventists, and
non-religious pacifists were also sentenced.

On 9 September 1996, a young man from the town of Popovo was given a
ten-month prison sentence for refusing to perform military service.
This refusal was his second; he had already received a six-month
suspended sentence.

Protection of Minorities:

The Roma

According to the 1992 census, there were 288,000 Roma (less than four
percent of the population) in Bulgaria. Roma leaders, however, claim
that the real number is much higher, as high as 800,000 (just under ten
percent of the total population). In recent years, the Roma had faced
increasing problems. Discrimination against them manifested itself in
all sectors of social life. In the political sphere, Roma were
discriminated against by the constitutional ban on formation of
political organizations on ethnic grounds (Article 11.4). Their civil
rights were violated in labor, education and social policies. In
addition, there were strong negative attitudes in society with respect
to Roma. With rising xenophobia in Bulgarian society, the operation of
skinheads who "provided a remedy" by beating innocent Roma on the
streets met with wide acceptance. For the general public, all Roma were
perceived as criminals and therefore violent acts against Roma were
accepted as a "restoration of justice."

The media played an important role in labeling the Roma population as
criminals. They typically presented Roma only as perpetrators of
crimes, giving only occasional coverage to other aspects of the
community's social life. Moreover, the ethnic identity of alleged
perpetrators was often emphasized where suspects were Roma. The
language of reports was hostile and offensive, under headlines such as
"Gypsies Ravaged Bulgaria." Following further investigations by local
human rights activists, many such articles were proved false.

The police reinforced such stereotyping by publishing statistics about
increasing "Roma crime." In reality, Roma detained for minor offenses
such as theft often alleged that the police had forced them to admit
other crimes, usually several and more serious ones, which they had not
committed. Physical force was frequently used to produce "confessions"
from Roma - particularly where the detainee had a criminal record.

Roma constituted a disproportionate number of victims of police
brutality.

On 29 January, the 17-year-old Rom Angel Zabchikov died in a police
station in the town of Razgrad, apparently as a result of being beaten.
His family was first told that Zabchikov had fallen and broken his
skull. Later, the authorities claimed that he had in fact died because
of a fatally high level of alcohol in his blood.

On 17 July, two police officers shot dead two young Roma men in the
village of Lessura. The Roma were wanted for desertion from the army.

On 16 August, a Rom was killed in the town of Elin Pelin by the
chairman of the local municipal council.

On 28 August, a Rom was wounded by a police officer near the town of
Vidin and another allegedly beaten after being tied to a radiator at a
police station.

Investigators sometimes took advantage of the ignorance of most Roma
concerning their rights. For example, many Roma did not know, and were
not informed, about their right to a lawyer. Many were also unaware
that, having "confessed" under duress, they could retract such
statements in the court. Furthermore, since few lawyers took up Roma
cases, many had to go through legal proceedings without any legal
assistance at all. Moreover, in many cases, medical doctors refused to
issue certificates describing the injuries inflicted upon Roma by
police.

In certain locations such as Pazardjik, Stara Zagora, Sliven and
Shumen, where many conflicts between the majority population and the
Roma had occurred, prosecutors were apparently swayed by public
pressure, to the disadvantage of the Roma involved. Similar problems
were observed involving other branches of the judiciary.

The Draft Law on the Use and Protection of the Bulgarian Language

In April 1995, the Democratic Left party submitted to Parliament a
draft bill on the Use and Protection of the Bulgarian Language. The
draft law was later approved by several parliamentary committees with
remarkable unanimity, and was supported by various governmental
agencies and professional organizations but was not adopted. The law,
if passed, would have seriously restricted the right of members of
minority groups to use their language and to enjoy their own culture.

The proposed bill would have made the use of Bulgarian language
compulsory in public life - including administration, the judiciary,
and health services. It would have put an end to Turkish language
programs on the national radio, and to efforts to start broadcasting
television programs in minority languages. The bill (Article 13) would
even have forbidden the use of foreign-language phrases and words
unless they had already been integrated into Bulgarian, or "if they
cannot be replaced with equivalent expressions and words existing in
the Bulgarian language." Its Article 8 provided that shows in
entertainment establishments (such as restaurants and night clubs)
should have been approved by local cultural commissions, and that 80
percent of the content of such shows must be "of Bulgarian origin."

Homosexuals

Intolerance toward homosexuals in Bulgaria was also a cause for concern
in 1996.

On 10 June 1996, police raided the headquarters of the gay "Flamingo"
agency, the most popular center of gay life in Sofia. The Sofia
Prosecutor s Office had ordered the raid on the basis of pornography
laws. Video tapes, correspondence, advertising material, and office
equipment were allegedly confiscated. During the following days, police
carried out raids on several other gay bars, video centers, and a gay
beach, in Sofia and other cities, and materials were confiscated.
Several people were reportedly arrested for short periods. Television
and the press were reportedly invited by the police to cover the
action. As a result, reports showing handcuffed gay people appeared on
evening television news programs.

Rights of the Child:

The Labor Education Schools

A serious problem related to the fair trial issue was constituted by
the practice of sending juvenile delinquents to Labor Education Schools
which virtually amount to prison conditions. The basis of this practice
was the Law on the Prevention of Anti-Social Acts by Juveniles and
Minors, a communist relic from 1958. It provided that local
non-judicial institutions could confine in such "schools" juveniles
under the age of 18 who had committed a crime or other "publicly
dangerous acts."

Children aged between eight and 18 years could be placed in such
detention facilities without having been allowed legal defense during
the case hearing, or a right to appeal the ruling. Their "offenses"
could be as minor as vagrancy or simply being "uncontrollable." In
Labor Education Schools the children were subjected to serious
hardships such as hunger and physical abuse. Boys were particularly
often beaten or placed in an "isolator," they were routinely subjected
to head shaving, reduction diets, and imposition of work chores,
deprived of home leave, town outings, and denied the right to receive
correspondence. If they tried to complain about such abuses, they
risked being severely beaten.

Placing children and juveniles in Labor Education Schools constituted
imprisonment, regardless of the fact that the Bulgarian legislation
regarded it as an "educational measure:" the absence of an adequate
judicial procedure for investigating the charges; denying accused
children the chance to call witnesses; the fact that one and the same
body was responsible for bringing charges, processing the case and
imposing punishment; and the defendants lack of legal counsel during
proceedings, were all in flagrant contravention of international human
rights standards.

Street Children

Street children, i.e., children who were perhaps not actually homeless
but for whom the street more than their family had become their real
home, fell victim to violence both by police and by skinheads or other
violent groups.

Between 12,000 and 14,000 such children were estimated to be living in
cities throughout Bulgaria in 1996. Most of them (at least 85 percent)
were Roma. They supported themselves by begging, performing odd jobs
for shopkeepers, gathering waste materials from dump sites for
recycling, prostitution, and theft. Many were addicted to glue or
liquid bronze. As a result - and even more so because they were ethnic
Roma - they were perceived both by police and private citizens as
criminals.

Typically, police rounded up groups of street children on suspicion of
theft, or ostensibly for identifying children and finding runaways.
Many were held in police lock-ups overnight or even longer with no
judicial process or review. Conditions in lock-ups were grossly
inadequate. They were denied the use of bathroom facilities, received
no food and were detained with adults. Moreover, street children were
often subjected to physical and sometimes sexual harassment by police,
both at the time of arrest on the street and particularly during
interrogation at police stations. They were beaten with electric shock
batons, clubs, chains, rubber hosing, boxing gloves, and a metal rod
with a ball at the end (beech).

Many were attacked by skinheads, but the children seldom reported such
attacks to the police, expecting no genuine interest from law
enforcement officials who had themselves abused the children.

Children in Prisons

Alarming reports were received in 1996 about two penal institutions
where children were being held: Boychinovtsi prison (for boys) and
Sliven prison (for women and girls). Numerous children were reportedly
held in those prisons in pre-trial detention, often for over six
months, in company with convicted juveniles. It was, however,
impossible to verify many such reports because the Bulgarian
authorities denied access to these institutions. Monitors from Human
Rights Watch/Helsinki, who had initially received permission from the
Chief of the Prison Administration to visit the two prisons, were
eventually not allowed to carry out their investigations on an order
from the Chief Prosecutor s Office banning the visits.

Protection of Refugees

The situation of asylum seekers and other aliens in Bulgaria remained a
cause of concern during 1996. As of January 1997, 1,585 asylum seekers
were awaiting a decision and 209 recognized refugees were living in
Bulgaria.

The principal problem regarding asylum in Bulgaria remained the fact
that no asylum law had been adopted. A by-law authorized the National
Bureau for Territorial Asylum and Refugees (NBTAR) to consider
individual requests for asylum. However, its operation was often
criticized, because the processing of asylum requests was overlong and
because some applications were allegedly not registered properly and
thus not processed at all. Some applicants had been waiting for a
decision for as long as three years which placed them under extreme
psychological stress. Multiple social problems added to their constant
feeling of insecurity.

The second major problem entailed the lack of a right to appeal on
merits of a negative decision of the NBTAR. Under existing law, only
alleged procedural errors could be contested in a court of law, but
there was no provision for review on the merits of the asylum claim
itself.

For a large proportion of asylum-seekers, a temporary refugee
certificate issued by the NBTAR was the only valid identity document
they possessed. Even recognized refugees in Bulgaria did not receive
documents certifying their refugee status. This caused major problem in
their efforts to settle down and organize their life, particularly when
they wanted to register in the Employment Bureau and to look for work.

Prior to May 1996, asylum-seekers did not have the right to work. Thus
their only options were either to live on the insufficient funds
provided by the UNHCR Office in Sofia, or to work illegally or steal to
make ends meet. In May, an amendment to the Ordinance for the
Conditions of Issuing Work Permits for Foreigners was passed. It
provided that, three months after submitting their asylum application,
asylum seekers could apply for a temporary work permit allowing them to
work legally for a period of three months.

However, high levels of unemployment and economic crisis in the country
made it hard for asylum-seekers and refugees to find a job. Due to
widespread xenophobic attitudes, asylum seekers and refugees from
Africa had the smallest chances of finding employment, despite the fact
that some of them had received a university education in Bulgaria.

According to information published in the Bulgarian press, there were
around 50,000 illegally residing foreigners in the country in 1996,
most of whom were in transit to the West. Reaction to the high number
of illegal immigrants in Bulgaria greatly increased negative attitudes
and discriminatory behaviour towards foreigners both by private
citizens and the authorities. Several cases of police harassment and
attacks by skinheads on foreigners were registered in 1996.

The Death Penalty

In 1996, the Bulgarian Parliament discussed several motions to lift the
moratorium on executions imposed by the Parliament in 1990.
Justification for the proposals was sought by citing the increasing
crime rate. The Bulgarian Penal Code still provided for the death
penalty and, despite the moratorium, the courts continued to pass death
sentences when demanded by public prosecutors. In June 1996, the new
Minister of the Interior, Nikolay Dobrev, requested that Parliament
lift the moratorium. Up to 1997, all such attempts had been
unsuccessful. The reinstatement of the death penalty would contravene
the policies of the Council of Europe, of which Bulgaria is a member.